The Next Tech Unicorns Will Come From India

The accelerator program SAP Startup Studio at SAP Labs India just graduated its second cohort: 16 innovative B2B startups that are out to revolutionize the way we do business across industries by using the latest technologies. Among the graduates may be the next Narayan Murthy, Azeem Premji and Kiran Mazumdar Shaws, savvy entrepreneurs who will build the next global giant out of India.

Traditionally, entrepreneurship has not been the first career choice for graduates in India. For generations, many shied away from founding a startup due to the risks of failure, and pursued a career in an established company instead. However, in the last five years there is a growing surge of interest in being part of the startup economy. The success stories in global startup hubs, especially in Silicon Valley, and trailblazers in India, such as Flipkart, have inspired a new generation of entrepreneurs. This new generation dares to take risks and is determined to make a global impact. Today we are at the cusp of turning India into a cradle for the next tech unicorns.

The time is ripe to transition from creating well-funded startups to building unicorns in India that change the lives of billions of people globally.

That’s why we created SAP Startup Studio. Launched two years ago, SAP Startup Studio is a dedicated program to drive technology entrepreneurship in India with a focus on early or growth stage startups that use disruptive technology to solve business challenges. Startup Social embodies a passion to change the status quo. Innovation can come from any part of the world. By combining SAP’s technological expertise with our passion for startups, we are setting the foundation for the next big innovation to come from Asia. SAP Startup Studio can nurture and scale innovations made in India and take them to other geographies.

Since its launch, the program has become one of the biggest platforms in India to help startups scale.  For the second round the SAP Startup Studio had received over 700 applications from which the final 16 of this year’s cohort were chosen.

I believe that a strong ecosystem fuels startup success and corporate innovation. Our SAP Startup Studio program has created a strong network between the industry, startup founders, investors, academia and the government. Our program faculty teaches startups the importance of customer centricity and helps them to develop solutions based on customer needs. In many cases, product development happens together with SAP customers. Startups have the opportunity to create new solutions that use the latest technology to pave the way to the intelligent enterprise for SAP customers worldwide.

Many of our program participants continue to work with SAP after graduation. From this year’s cohort, six startups are developing co-innovation products with SAP. Others are building on the SAP Leonardo platform, which combines emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, advanced analytics and block-chain.

Nothing beats having a product that customers need and want. Getting this product ready relies on two things: knowing the customer and having the right strategy in place to create the best solution for your customer in a way that can scale.

A common mistake made by early stage companies is to experiment as long as needed to create a great product, then scale, and then figure out the business model once you’ve succeeded. They create the product first, before creating a corporate strategy. As a result, you may have a product, but not a company with a business model that can scale. A hunch of how well your product may sell is not enough for investors. They also need to see a sound business and go-to-market strategy based on real insights.

The better approach is to define the right strategy first based on customer needs. Getting the customer and market insights to develop the right strategy is not easy as a startup. It requires more than a little bit of help from business partners and mentors. The SAP Startup Studio has shown that when given access to a network of corporate, industry, financial and government partners, technology startups can create sustainable business models for their products that have the potential to change entire industries globally. Working with established players provides startups with access to resources and supply chains that enable them to enter a larger and better-established market more quickly. On the flip side, organizations collaborate with startups to accelerate innovation using emerging technologies. It’s a win-win for all.

With India being a hotbed for the latest emerging technologies, including internet of things, cloud, artificial intelligence, block-chain and machine learning, the global innovation potential of Indian startups is huge. By giving them access to a global ecosystem of partners, chances are the next SAP, Google, or Tesla may be founded in India. I am keeping my eyes on the SAP Startup Studio graduates. They may be among of the wave of tech unicorns from India.